Honesty Sideways

As part of the recruitment process for my new position, rather than a full psych evaluation, I filled out a questionnaire that consisted of just choosing words from a list and a profile was created. What I found interesting from this was that the results were actually described me quite well and my supervisor who has known me for three years with two of those as my ex-supervisor, agreed. This set a baseline of sorts for another test.

This afternoon I "met" (remotely) my North American counterpart for the first time and we had a few minutes before our supervisor came in to shoot the breeze a little. I enjoy meeting new people and getting first impressions, especially when I am going to be working with them long term, as it allows me a chance to test my evaluative skills and then get the feedback over time as to their accuracy. As I pay attention on this and have done this for many people across a diverse range of backgrounds and personalities, I think I am pretty good at it and I generally get most things in the ballpark.

After getting both of our prior permission to do so, toward the end of the session, the three of us compared our test results, including that of our supervisor who had also taken the test. Based on my own experience with the supervisor, the results were pretty accurate there too and after the brief time with my new colleague (45 minutes or so) I suspect theirs is pretty close also. All three were very different in comparison to each other, but it looks like they will compliment each other, which is important for our small team.

What was interesting with the three of us in this little experiment however is, we are all enablers in some way, which means that people tend to open up around us. A big part of this is through building trust, which requires being authentic ourselves, having integrity between what we say and do, as well as how we treat people. This means that even though this was the first conversation we were all in together, it was like we had known each other for years. A nice feeling going into a new role in a new team.

I was thinking about this a little afterward and how I am on Hive, which is essentially, the same as I am in real life. I know this because people who know me well in real life and have read much, comment on it. Some have even asked how I can be so comfortable "being me" as if being someone else would be better. But, my wife reads this (sometimes) and I want my daughter to read it in the future when she is old enough - they know me before today, today and will know me tomorrow - I want their experience of me to be consistent, no matter the medium.

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From the evaluation report:

Comfortably fluent and fast talk, in volume.

The "in volume" made me laugh.

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But I think for many, the internet is a place where they are able to escape themselves and build a persona around what they aren't normally. Someone mentioned "keyboard warriors" last night and I suspect, there are many of those who talk a big digital game, but when it comes to real-life practice, they are far less aggressive and are likely, quite impotent and powerless in their lives. The persona they build is an attempt to gain control and often, they will find ways to exert some sense of control or try to inflict pain onto others, because they themselves are suffering.

Others will fashion themselves into "intellectuals" but much of what they know is not based on their own experience or understanding, it is gathered from third-party sources. I have heard the term "citizen journalist" thrown around by people who are amplifiers of third-party content, with no actual direct experience with the cases themselves, just Google search results.

Much like a selfie filter that narrows a face, enlarges the eyes and takes away blemishes, people "augment" their online personality to be something other than what it is in their walking-world reality.

It is funny to observe as it happens for example on Instagram, where you see someone's digital face and then meet them face-to-face and there is an obvious disparity between the two. However, I think that it is more insidious when it comes to the intellectual or informational content, rather than the visual, because without confirmation potential and the ability to verify reality, some people may "trust" what is said.

The current "cancel culture" mentality that has been instilled online is part of this, where people who are suffer want to make others suffer - people who are powerless want to feel powerful - people who are disenfranchised want to be heard. But, because there is pseudonymity, *consistency isn't required, which allows people to skip and jump across topics they have no experience in, using the internet as a source for their "knowledge" on every topic imaginable. This means people can participate in an endless range of conversations, drawing from an endless pool of information that can support any position, without actually knowing anything, *or face the consequences of being wrong.

It is intellectual dishonesty and without any form of verification forthcoming, nothing said online should be trusted by anyone unless, you really trust the horse's mouth. But, even if you do "trust" it is best to evaluate why you trust that voice, because if it is just based on what they say and there is nothing to cross-reference it against, it is likely not coming from them anyway. When their words and their behaviors don't align, when there are major conflicts between what they say from one week to the next, when they are aggressive toward some and then playing the victim when met by response - be wary - they are playing for attention. And because the material isn't coming from their authentic selves, They can be anyone they choose. Playing on emotions as informational prostitutes - "I can be anyone you want me to be".

A fantasy.

In the real world however, we can only ever be ourselves. We can only run as fast as we can run, be as pretty as we are, know what we know, experience what we have lived and act according to who we are and the values we hold - no matter if we would like it to be different and no matter how many times we tell people otherwise. Me saying I can run a ten-second 100 meter sprint, have a three-foot vertical leap and can perform successful brain surgery, doesn't make it so.

Today in another session, the importance of "trust" came up and how it is so important in order to build strong relationships. However, I think that our ability to actually evaluate what is trustable has been eroded, since it is no longer required to be authentic and, we no longer face our audience in a physical reality. So, we are fed information from various sources, picking and choosing what we please, trusting based on how we feel about what is said, without tempering it against real-world experiences. If we can't accurately understand what and what not can be trusted, we run a high risk of trusting the wrong people.

But, this aside, I wonder -

Can we trust ourselves?

Considering the authenticity of others is one thing, but if we were to take an honest step back from our digital canvas, will we be able to observe what we put forward digitally and have it align with who we are in reality? Our online persona may represent us, but it doesn't mean that when it is overlaid over who we actually are, that it is going to trace our lines well at all.

I suspect that many of the outspoken pseudonymous and anonymous personas on the internet are not even close to accurately representing who is behind that keyboard, but might represent their suffering or who they want to be seen as. Like a school bully who is suffering parental abuse in the home behind closed doors, or the immaculately dressed and styled who when they look in the mirror, for ugly and inadequate - there is a conflict between the image they front, and their experienced reality.

We all have bad days. We all get tired and frustrated and at times feel less than our best, but I wonder what it is like to live in a constant conflict of a split digital and physical personality. It must be hard to maintain, whish is likely why when there is a place like Hive where there is a track record of what is said over the space of years, only the authentic stay consistent in personality. Yes, we all learn more, change our minds and develop - but digging into the past, can reveal just how fragile some people's personas.

If you had to evaluate yourself,

how similar are you to your Hive persona?

Be honest. At least with yourself.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]